Music student composes piece in name of slain principal

Eileen FitzGerald

Published 11:28 pm, Saturday, April 6, 2013

Photo: Eliza Hallabeck, Associated Press

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FILE - This July 2010 file photo provided by the Newtown Bee shows Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., who was killed in the shooting rampage there on Dec. 14, 2012. less

FILE - This July 2010 file photo provided by the Newtown Bee shows Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., who was killed in the shooting rampage there on Dec. 14, ... more

The young composer was reeling from the tragedy that took the life of principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was his middle school assistant principal in Danbury.

"You will only have the feeling of shock for so long and that puts you touch with a deep part of your feelings," Frucht said. "What that allowed me to do as I sat down at the piano was to ask myself `how do I feel about this?' I played while I was still in the moment."

The Danbury High School graduate and award-winning music composition student at Juilliard School in New York wrote a piece he called "Dawn" in honor of Hochsprung, who died confronting the shooter.

He felt an urgency to compose a piece in response to the tragedy. "I was thinking to myself, this is my responsibility," the 23-year-old Frucht said in a telephone interview. "There is going to be a piece written about this day and it's my responsibility to write it."

"Dawn" is orchestrated for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and harp and will be performed for his senior composition recital at Juilliard on April 15.

Juilliard junior Chelsea Smith, of Easton, who attended preschool in Newtown, will perform in "Dawn" at Frucht's recital and then use the piece at her recital April 19 as well.

Dawn's husband, George, and some other family members plan to attend the April 19 concert and will hear the composition for the first time. "I'm very happy with it," Frucht said. "I'm not trying to capture the tragedy. No one wants to relive that. This is supposed to be about moving on and remembering the great things about the people who were lost that day."

Hochsprung said he looks forward to hearing the piece. "It's uplifting. It's an emotional high point for me," he said, while going to Lincoln Center, where Juilliard is located, will be special too. "My last big date with Dawn was to the American Ballet at Lincoln Center," he said. They saw "Swan Lake."

Three of their daughters played instruments, two aunts graduated with doctorates in music and his great-grandfather was a violinist and composed music.

"Dawn and I worked together on the gifted program and we talked to the students about the importance of music," Hochsprung said. He had seen how much music training helped his daughters during the competitive college application process.

"When we look at public schools and we see how they eliminate music and art programs in budget decisions, those are the things that distinguish our children," Hochsprung said. "We think music is extremely, extremely important."

Smith, 21, a junior at Juilliard, attended preschool in Newtown, but completed her education in Easton and graduated from Joel Barlow High School in Redding. She also attended the Juilliard pre-college program, which was on Saturdays.

When she heard about the piece, she wanted to play it. "It's lyrical and moving," Smith said. "Paul is such a talented composer. He's embodied the memory of what happened and of Dawn."

She said that right after the tragedy they were trying to think of ways to contribute and keep the memory alive of those who died.

"Music has the ability to reduce many of the gaps that society makes with languages and other differences," she said. "I think it's one of the best ways to get the message across to people."

And playing a piece with such a personal connection adds a whole level of emotion, she said. "When you hear the piece, it will remind you of the event in an uplifting and hopeful way. It's what Paul was hoping for and what Dawn would have wanted, I think."

Frucht, who will graduate with a master's degree from Juilliard, begins a doctoral fellowship program there in the fall. Frucht said both he and Smith were grateful to Juilliard for providing them such a forum for their work.

"It's really, really rare, at my age, to be able to focus on what you want to say," he said. Not only did he get to write, he said, but great musicians will play his music in concert.

"I'm hoping people will get some kind of joy from this," he said, "that it gives them some ways to remember what they lost. It's something sonically tangible to their emotions."